Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), including Intestinal Colitis, Crohn's Disease (CD) and Ulcerative Colitis (UC), involves chronic inflammation of all or part of the digestive tract. Intestinal Colitis involves non-specific inflammation of the intestine. CD involves inflammation anywhere along the lining of the digestive tract, while UC involves chronic inflammation in a subsection of the digestive tract and usually only affects the innermost lining of the colon and rectum. Onset of IBD occurs from early childhood to older adulthood and includes symptoms of bloody stool, diarrhea, severe abdominal cramps and pain, and weight loss.
IBD is a debilitating condition affecting an estimated 1.4 million Americans, and is a high public health priority. The incidence of IBD has been increasing in the general population. It is costly in health care utilization, lost productivity, and quality of life, with estimated costs for privately insured IBD patients ranging from $15,020 to $18,963 per year.
Currently available treatment for IBD includes a stepwise application of antibiotics, corticosteroids, and immune modifying treatments. However, not all patients respond to these regimes. The loss of clinical response is a challenge that results in further morbidity, reduced quality of life, and increased costs. To date, there is no validated approach for monitoring patient health status while under treatment. Considering the variability in patient response and the frequent occurrence of flares or relapse in disease, finding and validating novel approaches for patient monitoring and self-monitoring holds great promise for improving care as well as patient quality of life. It is therefore of great interest to develop new approaches for monitoring IBD development and progression.